… that have been well-worth recording.

Firstly, an event that happens so rarely that a note needs to be made of it so that it can silence my critics, and that is that I was up, washed and breakfasted this morning before the alarm went off. And how often does that happen? It must be my guilty conscience pricking me, or else I wet the bed or something.

Mind you, this back trouble that I have, with it sticking to the sheets, is something of a recent phenomenon. When I lived in Crewe, you know I was quite an early riser. For example, there were 37 magistrates that sat on the bench of the Crewe Petty Sessions and I was up before them on a regular basis.

Second thing that happened to day was that the home-made immersion heater that has been ticking along quite nicely, burst into frenzied activity today.

52 degrees it made, with an ambient temperature of  just 21.5. And by the time the water had finished doing its stuff it had reached 53.5. A load of insulation wrapped round that will see that fine, I reckon.

But the sun has gone down from the solar water and it struggled up to 31 degrees, even though it was bright sunshine outside. However a bucket of water out of the small boiler settled that and I had a nice shower this evening. I’d already sampled some of the hot water for a wash and shave as I was going out. I like this boiler!

There were two reasons why I had to look pretty. Firstly I’ve been appointed to this referee’s whatsit. I’ve had my letter today, so it was off to Montlucon to buy some kit. A nice shirt, shorts, socks, whistle and red and yellow cards. What else does a man need?

The sports shop where I had to go for my kit is opposite the Auchan and so I have to go past the big traffic lights at the top of the hill. And this was the site that caught my eye this morning.

The big Saint Maclou home decoration place seems to have suffered a major catastrophe since the last time that I passed this way. This is a bit of a mess, isn’t it? I wonder what happened here.

And that’s not all that was interesting either. An ancient Peugeot 404 pick-up caught my eye while I was waiting at the traffic lights.

Back 20 years ago you would see thousands of these with their huge canvas tilts on French roads and they were the arch-typical French motor vehicle. Every farmer or rural dweller was the owner of one of these. However, today, you are very lucky if you actually see one. They are a dying breed and that’s so sad.

One thing that I learnt when I was talking to Franck in the Sports Shop is that have to go to Clermont Ferrand on Saturday 11th September for a referees’ induction meeting. It starts at 08:45 – heck, I can’t even normally make my kitchen for then!

But the second reason for going out was that Liz and I had been summoned to Marcillat en Combraille – the offices of Radio Tartasse, a small local radio station that broadcasts to the south of the Allier and the eastern Creuze as far as Gueret. They want to franchise “Radio Anglais” too. Yes our fame is spreading.

And after going to a cafe in Marcillat en Combraille, where the waiter forgot to bring us out coffees, Liz and I went for a nosey around the old station site there, now that I have been able to work out where it is.

This is the railway station of the very, very ephemeral railway line built by the Paris-Orleans railway company between Montlucon and Gouttieres

I say “ephemeral” because it really was. Although the line was agreed back in the 1880s to be of public utility, it was the “discovery” of coal at Gouttieres (about which we talked a good few weeks ago) at the turn of the 20th Century that provided the impetus for the building of the line to start.

1912 was when construction started and was stopped at the start of World War I, before any kind of real progress had been made.

By the time the War was over, it had been discovered that the Gouttieres coal seam was uneconomic and its exploitation had been abandoned, so further progress on the line was very half-hearted indeed.

It wasn’t until 1932 that the line was finally opened, and the passenger service lasted just 7 years. At the outbreak of World War II it was suspended “for the duration” and was never seriously restarted – certainly this far down the line.

Although a goods service continued on the line as far as Pionsat until the 1960s, the last passenger train on any part of the line was a weekly service between Paris and Neris-les-Bains which ceased operation in 1957.

Sticking our heads to the window of the railway station though, we could see in what was the public waiting room some really wonderful railway posters from the 1930s advertising all kinds of railway excursions.

So there you are then – wasn’t that an exciting day out?

Phew!

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